Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) - Violence against minors has increased with the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam.
In the past two years, about 2,000 children have suffered psychological abuse; and in 97 per cent of the cases, the perpetrators were relatives or acquaintances of the victims.
Presently, more than 10 million Vietnamese children are not in school, forced to follow distance learning.
This puts some of them at risk of dying if stay home; like an eight-year-old girl who was recently beaten by her father's partner and died in hospital from her injuries.
After divorcing his wife, Mr Thai went to live with Ms Trang in a luxury apartment in Ho Chi Minh City's Bình Thạnh district. The latter admitted to whipping the little girl for making mistakes in her homework.
In another case, the uncle of a little girl who is in fifth grade saw her drunk father beat her for no reason.
"Last week, when my niece was doing her homework, suddenly her father appeared and punched her in the face," said the man who lives in Thanh Hoa province.
“My niece was very scared. I managed to intervene in time, but the father beats his daughter regularly even when he is not drunk.”
According to the Research Institute for Sustainable Development many still believe that “parents have the right to educate their children by punishing and spanking them.”
Violence against minors causes psychological trauma and negatively affects children’s development.
The problem, according to experts, lies in the normalisation of cruelty towards children, which raises the risk of greater violence in families and society.
